captioned by closed captioning services, inc. >> chris: i'm chris wallace. the debate over guns gets even moreen tense. even more intense. >> too many children are dying. too many children. we he must do something. >> chris: a dramatic hearing on capitol hill underscores the deep divisions over how to prevent mass shootings. we will ask two of the leading advocates to make their cases. mark kelly husband of former congress woman gabby giffords and wane la pierre, head of the national rifle association. kelly and la pierre only on "fox news sunday." then, senate republicans go

after one of their former colleagues who wants to be defense secretary. >> that is a direct question and i expect a direct answer, yes, or no. >> chris: we will ask the sunday panel if chuck hagel's nomination is in trouble. and our power player of the week. cheer leader for poetry, all right now on "fox news sunday." >> chris: and hello again from fox news in washington. president obama travels to minneapolis tomorrow to continue his push for new gun controls. and saturday the white house released this picture of the president skeet shooting at camp david which he says he does all the time. meanwhile, the national rifle association is fighting any new limits on guns. the first big legislative battle this year and today we will cover it in depth. we will talk with wayne la pierre, head of the nra in a moment. first, mark kelly retired astronaut and navy captain and

the husband of former congress woman gabby giffords who was shot two years ago. he and his wife launched a new group americans for responsible solutions. start with your are wife's dramatic testimony before a senate committee this week. >> you must act. be bold. be courageous. americans are counting on you. >> chris: how is gabby doing? >> she is doing great, chris. she enjoyed being there in front of the senate. it was a little bit of having her former job back in a sense being on capitol hill. >> chris: letts get to this debate because your wife's shooting raises some of the questions at the core of the gun control controversy.

jared lofner had been suspended it from college because of concerns yet he was able to go to a gun store and buy the gun he used to shoot your wife. the question is what good does it do to make more people go through the background checks when loffner with his problems was able to pass a background check? >> that is a good question, chris. he was clearly mentally ill. the school knew it and his parents knew it. he was expelled from the community college because of his mental illness. if his condition was enter inside the system into the criminal background check system and he went to do that background check i would assume that he would have been rejected. so in the case of jared loffner if arizona would have entered 121,000 records that they haded not entered into it the system if his record was one of those he probably would have been

rejected just like since 1991, 1.7 million criminals and the mentally ill have been rejected when trying to buy a weapon. the thing to -- the other point we need to make is there s a gun show loophole. so in the case of the rejection at the gun store, he could have easily gone to a gun show or a private seller and get a gun. this s a problem but we can solve it. >> chris: let me ask you about another part of the issue of the debate. loffner shot your wife and all of the others at the shopping center that morning with a gun with a magazine that held 33 rounds. if there were a limit on the number of rounds, the president wants it to be 10 rounds, what difference would it have made? >> i think it would have made a big difference. as he tried to reload one 33 round magazine for are another

33 round magazine he dropped the magazine and that gave time for a woman named patricia mays to grab it and gave time for a couple of people to restrain him. if let's say for a second that that was a 10 round magazine and the same thing had happened you would have had a lot less people shot, a lot less people murdered. even 9-year-old are kristina taylor green who was born on 9/11 and did not live to see her 10th birthday she likely would be alive today because she was shot with a bullet after round number 13. >> chris: has you know, captain, wayne la pierre are is going to be on in the next segment and i want to deal with. so arguments that he makes. he says we had an assault weapons ban for ten years and it didn't work. >> well, i mean i don't know if it worked or not. i mean i haven't looked at all of the statistics. common sense tells me that if it is much more difficult for

criminals and the mentally ill to get assault weapons and high capacity magazines and guns if general that we will save lives. i served in the military for 25 years. i mean i know the value of having an assault weapon. a gun that can kill many people, many quickly. i personally don't believe that we should have the average person on the street including criminals, mentally ill and terrorists should have easy access to those weapons. in cases of mass shootings when an assault weapon has been used we know that typically twice as many people are shot and that means more people die and are severely injured. >> chris: the nra says there are already 9,000 federal gun laws on the books. the problem is the government doesn't enforce them. >> yeah, i agree with mr. lapierre on that point. there are a lot of gun law rs on the books that aren't enforced specifically with regards to background checks.

there have been 1.7 million people that failed the criminal background check since 19 1999d not enough are are prosecuted. they should be prosecuted and there should be stiff penalties. at the same time, we can't give those people a second option as to where to go get a gun and right now that is the gun show or the private seller. if we were to close those loopholes it would be much more difficult for criminals and the mentally ill to get a gun. gabby and i know this will be a hard problem to solve. she was somebody in congress who worked with republicans and worked across the aisle and that is what we need to do here today. these are difficult problems. but in the united states of america, we solve difficult problems. i mean we sent men to the moon. we built an international space station. we cure diseases. we can fix this. >> chris: the basic question, the basic argument the nra makes is they say and the supreme court has upheld that there is a constitutional right

to bear arms and they say government doesn't have the right to say what kind of gun, how big a magazine according to the nra that is tyranny. >> well, i don't agree. you know, i do agree that every american has the right to own a firearm, to protect himself, to protect his family, to protect his property. gabby and i are both gun owners. i don't think you will find a person that is a stronger supporter of the is second amendment than me. i defended the second amendment with my life over in iraq and kuwait. this isn't about the second amendment any more. this is about public safety. we had 20 first graders die in their classrooms because we don't have sufficient gun violence legislation in this country. in 19134 we banned automatic weapons. i would argue that the semi automatic assault weapon with a high capacity magazine is just too dangerous to be on the street where criminals,

terrorists and the mentally ill can easily get them. >> chris: let's talk political reality here because as we mentioned you and your wife are starting a political group. the president obviously is making a push, mayor bloomberg and a number of other mayors making a push. let's talk political reality. i don't have is to tell you the nra has a lot of clout on capitol hill. in the last election cycle they contributed $20 million to federal campaigns just last year. 50% of the members of the new congress have an a rating from the nra. realistically what do you think you can actually get through congress this year? >> well, certainly sitting in front of the senate judiciary committee i saw on both sides of the aisle that members of the senate of that committee really feel that we need to do something. now, you sometimes, you know, it wasn't clear that everybody agrees on exactly what needs to be done. but i i certainly saw that thee

is certainly a feeling, i believe, that a criminal background check is a necessity to keep criminals, the mentally ill and terrorists from getting weapons and i think that is very possible to get that done. i mean gabby and i are going to work as hard as we can to do whatever we can to get common sense solutions. i think the first thing, i mean along with some help for the mentally ill and addressing the problem is a universial cremal background check. >> chris: you did not mention the assault weapons ban and vice president biden said something quite interesting this week. i will put it up on the screen. he said i'm much less concerned quite frankly about what you you call an assault weapon than i am about the the magazines and number of rounds that can be held in a magazine. has your side already given up on the idea not whether you think it is right or wrong but whether it is politically practical, realistic, have you

given up on the idea of banning assault weapons this year? >> first of all, gabby and i don't have a side. our organization is -- supports gun owners, responsible gun owners like ourselves. people that are strong supporters of the second amendment. i think that s really a priority here. another priority is to protect americans and there is some common sense things we can do to make this country a lot safer. universal criminal background check. identifying the mentally ill and getting the records into the system. the high capacity magazine issue needs to be addressed. it saves lives and assault weapons. i mean like i said, chris, i mean i spent 25 years in milt terri. i know the value of having an assault weapon and it is to kill a lot of people very quickly and i think they are way too readily avai available. i think in time we will be able to address those issues. >> chris: finally, less than a minute left.

as you know, wayne la pierre will be on right after the break in the next segment. man to man, what do you want to say to him? >> certainly he will say that background checks don't work. that is not true. he will tell you that in a couple of minutes. since 1999, 1.7 million people were prevented from getting a firearm because they had a criminal record or history of mental illness. we stopped those people from getting a gun. now, we have to make sure they don't have a second option to get the gun and that is getting a gun from a private seller report gun show he loophole without having a background check. we need to close that loophole. i hope mr. la pierre with think about what his members want. 74% of nra members think it is a very reasonable thing to do to have a background check before buying a gun. so what i would tell mr. la pierre is i hope he would listen to his membership because members of the nra tend to be very reasonable on this

issue. >> chris: captain kelly, thank you. thank you for joining us and we wish you and your wife the very best, sir. >> you're very welcome, chris. thanks for having me on your show. >> chris: up next, the head of the nra, wayne la pierre. [ male announcer ] it's simple physics... a body at rest tends to stay at rest... while a body in motion tends to stay in motion. staying active can actually ease arthritis symptoms. but if you have arthritis, staying active can be difficult. prescription celebrex can help relieve arthritis pain so your body can stay in motion. because just one 200mg celebrex a day can provide 24 hour relief for many with arthritis pain and inflammation. plus, in clinical studies, celebrex is proven to improve daily physical function so moving is easier. celebrex can be taken with or without food. and it's not a narcotic. you and your doctor should balance the benefits with the risks. all prescription nsaids, like celebrex, ibuprofen,

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>> chris: we are back more ob gun control. wayne la pierre joined the staff the national rifle association in 1978. for the last 22 years he has been the nra chief spokesman at the center of the debate over guns. welcome to "fox news sunday." >> thank you, chris. good to be with you. >> chris: you just heard captain kelly and he specifically brought up the

background checks and the fact that since 1991, 1.7 million people have failed background checks and been denied guns jury know you point out criminals aren't going to go through the background check and there are other ways, always going to be a black market to get guns. if 1.7 million people have already been denied guns by a partial background check, doesn't that make people safer? >> chris, i have all of the respect in the world for captain kelly and what happened to his family should never happen to any family we all want to stop it. let me talk about the proposal that president obama and people like mayor bloomberg are putting forward. one, let me answer your question. i don't think you can say that those 1.7 million people have been stopped from getting a gun at all because the government didn't prosecute virtually any of them. they let them walk in and they were denied and let them walk out and who really thinks that if they wanted to commit a crime they didn't go on and get

a gun. >> chris: i understand the hardened criminal but the disturbed person. the adam lanza in newtown and james holmes in aurora, colorado. those aren't hardened criminals and if they are stopped from getting a gun will that make a difference? >> the instant check is is the nra proposal. we offered it as an amendment to the brady bill and i have been in this fight for 0 years. we supported it and put it on the books. i have finally become convinced after fighting to get the mental records computerized for 20 years around watching the mental health lobby, the hppa laws and ama oppose it, i don't think it is going to happen. i mean the fact is the check now these people are not -- >> chris: worked enough that 1.7 million people were denied. i completely agree with you. as captain kelly pointed out, jared loffner was able to pass the test so there are holes in it. because it is not perfect doesn't mean that it doesn't work. >> the hole in it is the fact

that we have been fighting for 20 years to get the records computerized and i know what goes on behind the scenes in this town, they won't do it. the mental health lobby won't do it and hppa won't do it. >> chris: you are for a universal background check. >> universal. that is what president obama is now putting forward. let me talk about that. it is a fraud to call it universal. it is never going be universal. the criminals aren't going to comply with it. they could care less. you are not going to computerize, you have already seen you are not going to computerize the mental health records. we ought it to quit calling it a universal check. the title ought to be a check on law abiding people all over this country. talk about how it will work. they will take a failed system, if you are in broken bow, nebraska, or in selmo nebraska out there and you are a hunter or a rancher, if i want to tell you a shotgun or something like that the federal government is

going to have to go find a dealer or walk into a police station. who is going to do the check. there is going to be fees. paperwork. law aa biding people caught up in it a bureaucratic nightmare and there will be abuse in terms of prosecutions and it it is all going to affect only the law abiding people. the criminals could care less. >> chris: i want to move on to another subject. what do you you make of the picture that the white house released saturday of president obama skeet shooting at camp david. he says he respects hunting. >> well, the same thing dour the campaign when said to people i will not take away your rifle, handgun and shotgun. they leafletted the country obamalyers like this onshore will protect gun rights and now he is trying to take away all three. awayris: he s not taking away shotguns? >> have you looked at the fine stein bill he is supporting?

that is exactly what they have done. they will turn the universal check on the law abiding into a universal ridge is i have of law abiding people. and law abiding people don't want that. chris forgive me, sir,, but you take something that is here and you say it is going to go all the way over there. there is no indication. i mean i can underand it you are saying that is the threat but there is nothing that any one in the administration that indicates they will have a universal registry. >> and obama care wasn't a tax until they needed it to be a tax. >> chris: the supreme court said that. >> didianne feinstein said if i could o go door to door and pick them all up i would do it. can i say one more. >> chris: i have one more question. forgive me, sir, i'm going to conduct the interview. every day we talk about a shooting. often times mass shooting day-after-day after day and the frustration s you don't think that limiting guns has anything

to do with that. i understand there is some things you think do work and we will talk about that. the murder yesterday of former navy seal chris kyle. this was a man who wrote american sniper. the man credited with the largest number of confirmed kills of any american soldier ever. he and another man gunned down at a texas gun range. >> if you want to stop violence in this country here is what you do. first, if you want to protect our kids you put armed security in schools. i'm not talking about arming teachers. i'm talking about police officers and certified professional security people. there is not a parent that sends off their kid to school that wants the kids to be unprotected. just in atlanta this past week armed security stopped a shooting in an atlanta school. stopped it. stopped it. >> chris: here is the problem with that respectfully, sir. if you arm people at schools a lot of these people aren't just

motivated to kill people in schools. they want to kill people and forgive me he and if a school is too tough they will go to a movie theater iter like james holmes went. they will go to a shopping center. they will go to a gun range and kill chris kyle. >> talk about the rest of it. fix the mental health is system. every police officer knows people on the street that should be institutionalized. they are out there walking around on the street. we need to change the civil commitment laws and change the mental health system and fund it and make it work and get the people into treatment. we are not doing that. i still would like to see the mental health records computerized but we can't even get that done. i have a transcript here with senator schumer on 20 years ago on face the nation where he begged him to help us do it and they still haven't done it and the nra has been fighting to get it done. >> chris: you oppose gun control as a form of government tyranny but in the senate

hearing this week you offered a different reason for ar it. let's take a look. >> what people all over the country fear today is being abandoned by their government if a tornado hits, if a hurricane hits, if riot occurs that they will be out there alone and the only way they will protect themself in the cold and dark when they are vulnerable is with a firearm. >> chris: do you really think that that is a more serious threat, marauding bands of americans during a tornado or a hurricane, do you think that s a more serious threat to the average american than the steady drum beat of gun violence and sometimes mass gun violence? >> we want to stop gun violence. that s what we are trying to do. here is the threat. there are 25 violent crimes a week in this country. we need to take a city like chicago. the american public will get it when i say it. chicago is 89 of 90 in the country in terms of enforcing

the reasonable federal gun laws nra supports on the books with felons with guns and gangs with guns, the people doing the killing. we are all obsessed with the taliban and we ought to be. what about the gangs that are ruining neighborhoods all over the country? we need a federal ta task forc, if it takes 500 agents, a thousand agents. go into chicago. i know eric holder doesn't want to do it. he says it as cookie cutter approach. rahm emanuel sent people up on the hill when the clinton administration was there saying they are giuseppeys and they can't be concerned with drug dealers with guns. every gang member on the street of chicago starting tomorrow morning. pick them up. we have a federal law to get them off the street and put them in prison and that would cut crime and we are not doing it. >> chris: it wouldn't have saved the people in newtown or in aurora, colorado. wouldn't have saved the people in clackamas county, oregon. i want to talk about the question of rights.

the heller case is the big victory for the nra in which the court affirmed the second amendment means what it saids. here s what justice scalia wrote in the majority opinion. the second amendment conferred an individual right to keep and bear arms. of course, the right was not unlimited. not unlimited. scallscalia talks about what ks of weapons people can buy and who can buy them and where they can be carried. the right is not unlimit. >> we have reasonable laws the nra supports and if they would enforce them in chicago it would cut crime. the most basic right is to protect yourself and american public wants to be able. semi automatic technology has been around for a hundred years. if you limit the american public access to semi automatic technology you limit their ability to survive. if someone is invading your house you shouldn't say you should only have five or six

shots. a woman should have what she needs to protect herself, not what some politician thinks is reasonable. >> chris: a couple of weeks ago the nra started running an ad that created a great deal of controversy. here is clip. >> are the president's kids more important than yours? then why he s skeptical about putting armed security in our schools when his kids are projected by armed guards at their schools. >> chris: do you regret putting up that ad? >> the point of that ad was this. it wasn't picking on the president's kids can. >> chris: it mentions them. >> they are safe and we are all thankful for this. >> chris: they also face a threat that most children do not face. >> tell that to the people in newtown. >> chris: do you really think that the president's children are the same kind of target as every school child in america? that is ridiculous and you know it, sir. >> unfortunately, i think there are parents all over the school that think all over the country that think their kids are entitled to the same amount of protection when they go to

school and they want their kids to be safe. >> chris: so they is should have secret service? >> no, they should have police officers or certified armed security in the schools to keep people safe. if something happens the police time is despite all of the good intentions is 15-20 minutes. it is too long and not going to help those kids. certified armed security in schools just like -- >> chris: that isn't going to protect them in the shopping mall, in the movie theater, on the street. >> which is why we need to do everything else i'm talking about. enforce the federal gun laws which we do not do now against gangs with guns and felons in it guns. in the shadow of where we are sitting right now, gangs are out there in washington, d.c. and you can by drugs and guns. they are trafficking 13-year-old girls. >> chris: i scrub stand there are lots of problems out there -- i understand there are lots of problems out there there. the gangs don't commit the mass murders. adam lanza was not a member of

a gang. james holmes was not a member of a gang. you you made it a class argument. the rich, the elite they have body guards and they have security. >> and mayor bloomberg has it. he has body guards. >> chris: i tell you somebody else who has security. you do. >> sometimes. >> chris: on capitol hill you had security. today you have security. >> you talk about hypocri is sy in the open. we had all kinds of threats. >> chris: does that make you an out of touch elite because yew have security? >> i don't deny anybody the right to security when they need it. it is ridiculous chris for all of the elite and powerful 5-privilege to send their kids to schools where throw the security.ithere is armed >> chris: i don't know anybody elite who send their kids. my children went to the same school that the obama children went to many years ago. there were no armed security there. >> a third of the schools in the country already have armed security.

>> chris: the idea of an elite class is just nonsense here. >> capitol hill right now they are all protected by armed security with high cap magazines while they is sit there and try to limit the average citizen to ten because they think that is reasonable in their opinion. >> chris: one last question because we are running out of time. president obama is making this a big issue and going to minneapolis tomorrow. you know that captain kelly and gabrielle giffords are making it an issue. mayor bloomberg is going to launch a big campaign. running an ad during the super bowl here in the washington area pointing out the fact that in 1999 you supported the universal background check. >> not universal. we supported the check at gun shows. not universal. >> chris: you stand corrected. question, do you think in the environment with the new effort after newtown you will still be able to convince congress not to pass any new gun controls? >> i think the majority of the american public sees through this. they want the current enforced. they don't want more laws

imposed on what is only going be the law abiding and see how little all this has to o do with keeping kids safe and how much it has to do with a two decade long agenda to drag out the same old gun ban proposals they have been trying for 20 or 30 years and piggyback them on to this tragedy. i think that is a tragedy. make chicago safe. put a federal task force in there tomorrow morning. >> chris: thanks for coming in today and this will be a debate, the first big political debate of this year. thank you, sir. >> thank you. >> chris: up you next, chuck hagel stumbles his way through the senate confirmation hearing. we will ask our sunday group whether his nomination to be the next secretary of defense is in trouble. d cheese. catches and throws, and spaghettio's. that's what happy kids are made of. campbell's. it's amazing what soup can do. and i was told to call my next of kin. at 33 years old, i was having a heart attack.

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i support the president's strong position on containment. >> i have just been handed a note that i misspeck and said i supported -- misspoke and said

i supported president's position on containment. if i said that it meant to say that obviously his position on containment, we don't have a position on containment. >> just to make sure your correction is clear, we do have a position on containment which is that we do not favor containment. >> chris: defense secretary nominee chuck hagel struggling in his senate confirmation hearing this week when asked about the u.s. policy on iran's nuclear program. time tore the sunday group. kevin madden. nina easton of fortune magazine. laura ingram and former democratic senator evan bayh. you have served in the senate for are 12 years. have you ever seen a nominee for a top cabinet post have a worst confirmation hearing? >> well, chuck didn't bring his a game first. i think everybody can see that. probably chuck first and foremost among them. at the end of the day it is not going matter. elbe confirmed as secretary of defense and because there is a

strong presumption that the president gets to choose his own cabinet absent disqualifying from a personal standpoint. nothing like that here. many of the republicans will vote no largely because it is an easy no vote. the president gets his cabinet. the key question is does someone like a senator like ted cruz decide to filibuster. it will create heart burn for moderate republicans. the final analysis the ultimate takeaway for this is the next time secretary of defense hagel comes before congress or has a press conference he needs to bring the a game to project the sense of command and confidence. >> chris: should it matter that he didn't seem to know what administration policy was and in some cases didn't seem to know what his own policy was. he is going to be the head of the pentagon. >> raises questions on shows like this but it won't affect the confirmation. >> as a senator it wouldn't raise a question in your mind? >> he corrected his answers. he wasn't as crisp as he might

have been. i think he misspoke. it wasn't as if he was projecting a real difference on policy with the administration. what ultimately matters, chris, is how he performs as secretary of defense. bob gates, leon panetta set the bar high and i think chuck hagel will clear that bar if he is better prepared the next time. >> chris: laura, at various points he didn't seem to know or have thought much about major issues and about the funding. at one point he called the iranian government legitimate and elected. are you as forgiving as senator bayh. >> i think the russians and chinese were probably watching out this played out. bill kristol was right when said this is not just a second rate performance. this could have been the worst performance that ever took place at a confirmation hearing and that is saying something. when you are the secretary of defense it shouldn't be just the fact that you won two purple hearts or were awarded those in battle. his patriotism is not

questioned. merit should count for something and he is going to have is to stand up against a frankly american military that is going to be cut back. he has to stand for that and still be able to stand strong on the world stage. the fact that he didn't nowhere sequester came from. he didn't realize it came from the budget agreement. that in and of itself is disturbing. you would expect an aide to him to know the answers to these questions. he seemed completely out of his depth which was surprising knowing that people like mccain were going to be very tough on him. this dowd haven't come at a surprise to him. i thought it was a shocking performance. really shocking. >> chris: and then hagel had to deal with past remarks such as the 2006 comment that the "jewish lobby had intimidated people on capitol hill to do, quote, dumb things which led to this exchange with senator lindsay graham. >> give me an example of where

we have been intimidated by the israeli jewish lobby to do something dumb? regarding the middle east, israel or anywhere else. >> i can't give you an example. >> chris: which races the question, why does barack obama want hagel in the pentagon in the first place? >> i think his stumbling we are all focusing on how he stumbled. what troubled me was the peek into his world view which in fact i think is the president's world view we are seeing in the second term and the containment exchange was very much front and center this this. what does containment mean? means that we are going to allow possibly a nuclear iran and just contain it, not prevent it. already people are skeptical about whether the house is going to keep the military option on the table to prevent a nuclear iran. this goes to the question of does hagel see the u.s. military a strong u.s. military as a force for good for leadership in this world? and you get the sense from this, from his comments ala bob

woodward in the washington post and the exchange he had with president obama that he doesn't. he sees this as is a new world order and that we are are as it were leading from behind. he didn't exactly say this. i would add this comes at a time when leon panetta is pointing out the threat of the man pads the antiaircraft attack missiles that are coming out of iran that we need to intercept. i mean there is dangers in places like that. al-qaeda expanding in north africa. a dangerous world. you can't just put a pause button on it. >> chris: let me be blatantly political here with you. what is the smart play for senate republicans? should they filibuster haiged and we should point out we can't find any history of a top presidential cabinet appointment ever being filibustered by either party. should they try to filibuster him or say hey, you want him, you got him. >> i expect talking to folks up on capitol hill there is not a

very big appetite for filibuster. i think they are more inclined to use this as a vehicle to again argue where they disagree with president obama's national security policy and where they disagree with his foreign policy. i think that is probably the better play. you know, one of really interesting things here is to senator bayh's point is a lot of folks believe that the president does get his nominee but that there were a number of instances where his qualifications senator hagel's qualifications did come into play that it was a very big problem that you have somebody who s not even qualified enough to have really important and distinct opinions on some very big national security policies. that is something that the folks up on capitol hill will use that as a vehicle to litigate some of the differences they have with the administration. >> chris: we have to take a break here. we we come back, serious movement this week on immigration reform.

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yes, they broke the rules. they crossed the border illegally. maybe they overstayed their visas. those are the facts. nobody disputes them. but these 11 million men and women are now here. >> if this endeavor becomes a bidding war to see who can come up with the easiest, quickest and cheapest pathway to green card possible this thing is not going go well, folks. >> chris: the president and senator marco rubio leading the discussion this week on what to do about immigration reform. we are back now with the the panel. a bipartisan group of 8 senators, four republicans and

four democrats you see them on the scene agreed to a statement of principles this week on immigration. the 11 million illegals already here would get legal status almost immediately but the path to citizenship would be linked to tougher enforcement at the border and in the workplace. lara, reasonable compromise? >> i don't think so. i will think what you are seeing here is the republicans are kind of cautiously he optimistic because marco rubio is up there and doesn't love marco rubio if you are a conservative. the problem here is we have seen the movie and know how it ends. enforcement and prom misof enforcement. when it is all linked together it is all in one bill the enforcement usually never happens. what we know from the administration the democrats is when states try to enforce what they can of immigration law they are thwarted and lawsuits are filed whether it is arizona and places like, alabama. the partial dream act amnesty from the president by executive fiat. they are not thrilled with spending more money on

enforcement and making it more difficult. david vitter called marco rubio naive and said you are nuts if you think you can do this all in one bill. establish border security first and then i think the american people are are very compassionate and giving and deal with the people more closer to 18 million and not 11 million by the way. that is the number everyone throws around. then deal with the people here illegally. >> chris: senator bayh and i'm not saying whether laura is right or long in terms of that being the right policy prescription, that completely unacceptable to the hispanic community and to president obama. >> there are are area for the con centric circles overlap. the democrats want to do this from a policy perspective but want to play kate part of our base. that is very important. the republicans need to do this for reasons of self-preservation. they can't have a conversation with the single most rapidly growing part of the electorate unless they address the issue and business community believes resolving the issue is

important to growing the economy. i think there is some reason to believe a consensus can be form. it may be a narrow one. one of the main issues here what does the administration and advocates want. take martin luther king's approach to civil rights reform step by step or make compromises to get something done with the republicans or insist on everything around say rather than legislation we would rather have an issue in the mid term elections. >> chris: you don't think the democrats and the president would agree to the idea the conservatives suggest of enforcement first and border security first? seman ticks. the is he is man >> you do that before you move at all. >> the devil is in the details. what is the timing and metrics you you use. yes, some enforcement but not something that says forever to these people there is no practical hope of ever having

some kind of permanent stat tutankhamun. thstatus. >> that is only four republicans. let alone the house republican majority, what are the chances that republicans would go for something close to what the gang of eight came up with? because one of the key things we should point out is under the bill you would get not a path to citizenship but even before enforcement you get provisional status which means immediately the 11 whatever million see now i'm concerned about that we are going to say 11 million just for the sake of the argument, immediately have legal status in this country. >> i think you are poised now for a better chance at success on this issue than any time we have previously. i think one of the things that has happened is you do have a seat change among many republicans who do believe there is an important political ramification here. we are not going to win hispanic voters with just one

immigration bill. folks like marco rubio do accept the resources expectations of folks like senator vitter and they do understand there are folk folko have very strong substantive concerns about how we go about enforcement and he is willing to demonize the critics or attack them. he is looking to them for input and to be a part of the solution. that is what happened. i don't mean this critically. i mean it more clinically. every time somebody disagreed with senator mccain he would attack them and say come up with your own bill. this time there is a greater degree by folks like marco rubio that want to go out and engage critics. he has gone on talk radio and engaged people who have been critical. that is the key element to whistling or not this is successful. >> to answer my question do you think particularly the house republican majority could go along with something like this? >> i believe there are principles in there that folks within the house majority do agree with and they do

recognize this is part of a larger economic argument and it is only a step in dealing with some of the political problems that we have. >> is this a win-win for the president if he gets come prehen is suv immigration reform it is a huge legislative accomplishment and adds to his legacy and if he doesn't republicans are just digging themselves into a deeper hole with hispanics? >> like everything seems to be a win-win with the president these days, particularly on spending issues. i think we can't lose sight of the attacked, though, that it is potentially a win for republicans. you know, this legislation, this outline of a legislation that is remarkably similar to 2007 when by the way that sank john mccain's first attempt at the primary. but the difference now is a lot of election. the fact that republicans got 27% of the his uponnic vote when -- hispanic vote when they should be getting 40% and you have a very attractive popular

conservative leading the charge and i think there will be conservatives that aren't on the vote but i he think having marco rubio out there out front on this is really key and i think it will be a good for the republican party. >> it is risky for rubio, though. i think we is to be clear on that. while he is extremely popular and again we he all like him, there is a real divide here in the republican party. 23 million americans either unemployed or underemployed. the idea this is somehow going to be a huge boon to the economy. tell that to the middle class worker in ohio who says his wages sag nateed and other people unemployed for long-term periods of time. it is a tough deal for them. >> the difficulty for the republican party at this point, chris is you have a disconnect between primary and general election politics and what marco rubio understands it doesn't do you any good to win a nomination if you rendered yourself unelectable in the fall. >> chris: and to go back to you, laura, in about 15 seconds do you think republicans will

go along with something along these lines? >> i don't. unless there is real enforcement and it is verifiable, not the appointment of another commission which i think is just a joke, unless it is real enforcement, i think it is not going to work. i don't think it will go through. that is my view. >> chris: thank you, panel. see you next week. don't forget to check out panel plus where your group picks up with the discussion on our website fox news sunday .com. follow us on twitter @ "fox news sunday." up next, our power player of the week. lmp [ male announcer ] this is sheldo whose long day setting up the news starts with arthritis pain and a choice. take tylenol or take aleve, the #1 recommended pain reliever by orthopedic doctors. just two aleve can keep pain away all day. back to the news. your soups are so awesomely delicious my husband and i can't stop eating 'em! what's...that... on your head?

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... >> chris: it is common practice in washington for people to use words to score a point. but we found a woman that uses words to heal and she is our power player of the week. >> to comfort us when we have losses, to celebrate with us our joys and triumphs but also to help us see things differently. >> natasha is talking about power tree and the role she says

it continues to play, not as accessible as prose or video images but conveying something important, something deeper. >> sometimes our everyday speech has a way of saying this is me and that is you and we are different. i think poetry has a way of saying this is my experience and you can share in it with me. >> truth be told i do not want to forget anything of my former life. >> it's the nation's 19th nation's poet laureate. her job is to spread her love of poetry. >> i get inspired. >> she describes her role as a cheerleader. >> in a former life i was a cheerleader and being passionate about something that i would like to convey to other people. >> her father is white and mother black. they had to leave mississippi in

60s to get married. >> chris: how do you think it affected you the idea that your parents' marriage was a crime? >> well, i think it created in me a sense of psychological exile. >> when she was 19 her mother was murdered by her former stepfather. >> that is the moment when i tried in the language of poetry to make sense of that loss. >> here the dead stand up in stone, white marble on confederate avenue, i stand on ground wand mal owed by a web -- >> one of her themes is memory. what gets left out of the nation's public record. she won a pulitzer prize about a forgotten regimen that fought in the civil war. >> we know it's our duty to keep white men as prisoners, rebel prisoners. >> chris: she wrote that in the

library reading room. she would look up at a pillar marked poetry. >> now when i do it i can't see the word poetry so clearly, but i have faith that it is there. >> chris: so she will continue to cheer lead for an art form for you to slow down and contemplate in a world that doesn't always view that. >> trying to find a way to say what things so necessary to be said but so difficult also. to someone that i can speak intimately across time and space on the page, that is thrilling to me. >> chris: she works out of the attic in the library of congress. she has set up office hours there for people that want to come and discuss poetry. that is it for today. have a great week. and we'll see you next fox news sunday.